How to market to a list of 2k students?

Business and economics students (especially those at University) are likely to be bright sparks, skeptical at heart, who probably won't respond too well if you try to sling them an email submit to "win an Xbox!".

Given the economic situation at the moment, this crowd is probably going to be a little uneasy over it's job prospects. I've seen quite a few Job Search lead programs. Maybe these would fit in nicely if you built a landing page catered to business students.

Besides that, you have to look at some of the obvious urges of the demographic:

1. Save Money - Cheaper car insurance, Credit Reports, credit cards designed for students...

2. The Opposite Sex - A dating offer targeted towards the younger Uni demo in time for Valentines Day?

3. Have Fun - Students love to go on summer holidays and will be thinking about their plans for the summer right about now. Can you hit them with a relevant travel deal offer?

Lots of options, just a case of finding the sweet spot with them.

Hey Joetann, I was thinking that if you can get your hands on old exam papers and other resources they might need for tests and exams you could combine that into a book of sorts and market that to them. Most students are lazy and would pay for notes, exam papers etc etc, you could also market the prescribed textbooks to them, but this is only viable twice a year really. Another possibility would be to offer a service where you correct their assignments for them for a small fee (there is a thread on WF on this topic) Some universities has a writing center that does that already but not all students know about it, so if you could market to that list that such a service is available you would definitely get some hits.


Good Luck Buddy
IMGangsta.

As a person in business: If I had a list of 2000+++ business/economics
students in a set of local universities, I'd be resourceful and do the
following:

•Contact relevant university department offices. Request for details of
their recently held and upcoming events among other whathaveyous...

•Contact relevant student organizations. Request for details of their
recently held and upcoming events among other whathaveyous...

•Advertise a job ad for post graduate students of psychology,
developmental communications, advertising, marketing, visual marketing
communications and statistics...

•Group them. Ask, from the data I acquired,:

i. the psychologist to develop a market data acquisition plan for the
purpose of gaining usable details for my marketing campaigns...

ii. the developmental communications specialist to formulate, from the
work of the psychologist, a series of questions and other data acquisition
methods for the purpose of gaining usable details for my marketing
campaigns...

iii. the advertising, marketing and visual marketing communications
specialists to integrate data acquisition methods and questions for the
purpose of gaining usable details for my marketing campaigns into the work of the psychologist
and developmental communications specialist...

iv. the statistician to implement the data acquisition plan, formulated by the psychologist and
developmental communications specialist and improved by the advertising, marketing and visual
marketing communications specialists, by conducting fieldd research and subsequent data
analysis...

v. the psychologist to analyze the analytical report of the statistician...

vi. the developmental communications specialist to analyze the analytical
reports of the psychologist and statistician...

vii. the advertising, marketing and visual marketing communications
specialists to analyze the analytical reports of the statistician,
psychologist and developmental communications specialist and to
subsequently improve the usability of the data for my marketing
campaigns...

I'd then carefully study the data and formulate then implement:

•product/service development campaigns,

•offline promotional campaigns to establish the reputation of my business as a friendly expert
offline source of useful and updated information, advice and content relevant to
the needs and problems of my target market as well as to promote the online presence of my
business,

•online promotional campaigns to establish the reputation of my business as a friendly expert
online source of useful and updated information, advice and content relevant to the needs and problems of my target market, and

•offline and online marketing and sales campaigns to establish my business as a friendly expert
offline and online source of products and services beneficial to my target market...

I greatly enjoy doing this and of course the benefits this method provides me...

Finch is right. Look for want would make students spend and he has good suggestions.

No offense finch but the first two ideas are going to be instantly ignored as spam. Over the course of yourself how many Ad's/Spam have you seen for "meet hot singles" or "cheap car insurance here".

After a while people just tend to skim over them or delete them as spam.

To the OP the suggestions your making make me fearful of what your going to be doing to those students email boxes.

How is it unsolicited if they've opted-in? I'm assuming the OP has built this list himself, and hasn't simply bought it.

As somebody who makes thousands of dollars through dating email drops alone, I can say that the clickthrough rate is entirely dependent on how creative you are.

You can't underestimate the difference between a TARGETED list and some list you bought for $5 that's been passed around for years.

The key to email marketing is not to simply bombard your list with offers, but to build a relationship.

I'm not for a second suggesting that he could be successful dropping a new dating offer every day of the week. But if he firstly builds a relationship by sending relevant content, he can then position himself to introduce an affiliate offer in to the campaign.

As a golden rule, I try to provide 3 helpful emails, followed by 1 affiliate offer (also disguised as something to *help* the reader), and then another 3 helpful emails. This develops a relationship with your list, showing that you're not out to spam them every day.

And of course, once you've built up that relationship, you can afford to get creative with how you introduce your affiliate offers.

Is it a list you've built yourself, Joetann - and how/under what circumstances did they opt in?

This is surely highly relevant to what you send them?

What have you been sending them while continuing to build the list?

Wow thanks for the great response everyone.

I think the idea of trying to give some job/career advice is great. Like has already been said, the current economics situation and ever present news programs at the moment are constantly scaring us into thinking there are no jobs out there. We also get lectures on career advice, CV writing and so on, so I could tie it into that to show I know what I'm talking about?

@Marx Vergel Melencio, I love your thinking, thanks. The only problem is, this is very time consuming and involves too much HR organization for my liking (at the moment). It's definitely something to keep in mind when I have more time though, thank you!

The university is in the UK.

I built the list myself. Not with conventional methods, though. That means not with an opt in. In fact it was kinda a bit of a gold nugget find, I doubt it'll happen again any time soon. I have not yet sent any emails to them yet.

My intentions are not to be spammy in any way, I do want to provide some value and meaning to my emails and not just an affiliate link.

I've considered buying a domain along the lines of 'www.<uniname>representative.co.uk' or 'www.<uniname>studentpromotions.co.uk' etc, and maybe creating a Facebook group once I start feeling good feedback.

I'd send the emails with something like 'studentoffers@<uniname>studentpromotions.co.uk' as the sender and provide a link to the website in all the emails. I'd then have some CPAlead survey stuff, advice (including the aforementioned job situation), stuff like that on the website?

Thanks again for the responses!

I study Psychology at university and there is an email address that any student can email and that email will be delivered to every single Psychology student at the university - probably about 1,200 students.

It's used for course questions, selling text books and trying to get people to participate in your studies and experiments.

I sincerely hope that this is not the same at your university and that is what you are considering to be your list?

The fact that one of your suggestions was:

"...send them some information about our university"

suggests to me that this might be the case.

If it is, DO NOT email that mailing list unless you have course questions or things like that.

James

I am currently a college student and the only thing way I'd pay attention to a "sale e-mail" is if it is offering me a way to save money on something I NEED to purchase... Like college books.

Try to find one of those eBook selling website and check to see if they offer an affiliate program or something. Then write a VERY PROFESSIONAL looking e-mail convincing them why buying eBook is a good option.

Hi James,

No my list is certainly not what you speak of.

Interesting idea though, I don't think my uni has this. At least, I know the school of B&E doesn't.

I'd love to tell you what exactly it is I'm on about, but for the sake of the poor buggers I really don't think it'd be appropriate. It's kind of a university error.

Yeh I'm the same. The books are starting to get pretty expensive now. An eBook resource is a great idea, particularly when everyone is cramming before their exams.

The thing is, with myself being a student it's kind of easier to gauge what to write and how to market to them. I'd like to give them something to talk about I guess.